


an unconscious affair

by PandorasBox (AdriannaRhode)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dreams, Dreamscapes, First Dates, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Prophetic Dreams, eating noodles, jaehyun is an awful procrastinator, just gentle n cute idk man, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27834049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdriannaRhode/pseuds/PandorasBox
Summary: The dream that changes everything starts out as something overwhelmingly ordinary.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47
Collections: Coffee Dates Fest [1st Round]





	an unconscious affair

**Author's Note:**

> JohnJae Coffee Dates Fest Prompt #0025: Jaehyun has always dreamed of things he wanted, it being a new laptop or a food craving he couldn't fulfil throughout the day– he's not capable of dreaming of anything else, just desires. One day, he dreams about someone he hasn't seen before.
> 
> My first NCT fest! Please enjoy some fluffy JohnJae, on me~

Jaehyun’s getting pretty damn tired of seeing that Fendi wallet every single night. It’s been four days, and he can’t seem to conjure the image of anything else. He doesn’t even remember where he first saw it, or why he even wants it. The thing costs more than a week’s pay, and it’s literally just a special black calf leather pocket to hold his nonexistent money. 

It’s a beautiful wallet, though. 

He admires it, sitting on the glass counter in the Fendi outlet store, as the impeccably-dressed employee prepares the dust bag and the packing box and the paper store bag to carry it away. Glossy black, the iconic gold Fendi ‘F’ buckle…damn. Okay. He kind of gets it. He can kind of see what his subconscious is doing. Jaehyun picks the wallet up, wishing passively that he's really about to walk out of the store with it. 

Because, of course, he isn’t.

That would require actually being awake. In the Fendi store. Not dreaming.

As if his subconscious senses his growing annoyance, Jaehyun wakes up with a start, alone in bed, tangled in the sheets with no wallet and no dignity. It’s honestly anticlimactic. Why can’t he dream about jjajangmyeon, or new curtains? Things that are reasonable and easy to get? 

“Jae? Wake up, bitch, I made muffins!” 

The piercing voice of Jaehyun’s housemate, Vernon, comes clearly even through Jaehyun’s closed bedroom door. He sighs. It’s early for a weekend morning, but the two boys who share this apartment with Jaehyun are nothing if not motivated early risers.

Shaking off the lingering emotions of his lucid dream, Jaehyun claws his way out of bed and dresses quickly, dragging on the bare minimum of lounge pants and a slightly-nicer t-shirt to go out into the apartment for breakfast. He stops by the bathroom to wash his face, and, meager morning routine completed, trips and curses his way into the kitchen. 

“Nice headband, fashionista,” says Jaehyun’s other roommate, Joshua, as he catches sight of him. 

Jaehyun puts a hand up to his forehead, and realizes he hasn’t removed the thick terrycloth band he uses to wash his face. It makes his hair stand right up on end, but it saves him the trouble of wetting his hair while he washes up. Oh, well. Too late now.

“You say that as if Vernon doesn’t walk around looking like a Beatnik Halloween costume,” Jaehyun replies. 

“I resent that,” Vernon says, looking wounded, as he leans down to pull a muffin tin out of the oven, “I’ll have you know that tie-dye is timeless and fringe is back for the spring.” 

Joshua pats their youngest housemate on the head placatingly as he passes by with a serving basket for the muffins. “It’s okay. You make a very cute Beatnik.” 

“Teaming up on me…” Vernon mutters. 

Their dynamic is strange and familiar, brotherly in a way that always makes Jaehyun feel equal parts aggressively cared-for and slightly pushed to the side. He’s a roommate, but they’re like family to each other, and that’s okay. 

Jaehyun sits at their small dining table, with its two matching chairs and one random one they picked up at a thrift store, and watches as Joshua wrestles the muffins into the basket and wrestles Vernon away from the oven. One sniff tells Jaehyun that they’re blueberry, and he eagerly relieves Joshua of the whole basket and plucks out one for himself. 

“What’s the occasion for muffins?” Jaehyun asks, through a mouthful of pastry. 

“Three more weeks of the term,” Vernon replies. “And then only one more year of school for me. Can’t come fast enough.” 

Vernon collapses into the other matching chair and takes two muffins, one for each fist, like a wild animal. Joshua regards him with distaste as he bites into one and then the other in tandem. 

“You could slow down and enjoy those, you know,” he says. 

“I am enjoying,” Vernon says. 

“You’re disrespecting them by eating like that.” 

They bicker on, as Jaehyun enjoys his breakfast and ponders back on his Fendi dream. He really can’t afford that wallet on his student loans and his meager on-campus job…but maybe as a graduation gift to himself? 

Assuming he graduates, that is. 

Jaehyun’s thesis paper, the communications research project that he’s been working toward for the last four years, is due in two weeks. And his brain is just not cooperating with him in this final stretch. He apparently has plenty of space for conjuring vivid dreams, but absolutely none to analyze all his date and synthesize an actual paper with a conclusion and an annotated bibliography. His draft is a twenty-thousand-word enormous mess, and the clock is ticking. 

He really needs to get to the library after breakfast. The early awakening has the double-edged gift of giving him plenty of time to chip away at his paper. There’s no guarantee he’ll actually get anything done, but goddamn, does he need to try.

\---------------

The dream that changes everything starts out as something overwhelmingly ordinary. 

It’s the result of a whole weekend of endless study and rereading his outlines and notes and ramming his head into the wall (metaphorically…and maybe literally, once or twice) to try and get the ideas flowing, Jaehyun thinks. He accidentally awakened some secret desires locked in a little corner of his stupid brain, or something. 

Jaehyun breaks through that hazy first layer of sleep to find himself in a library. The musty smell of the stacks and the endless rows of metal shelves remind him of his university research library, though that building doesn’t look exactly like this. Even in his dreams, he can’t get away from his thesis project. How annoying.

He’s combing through the spines of the books, searching for something that he can’t quite remember. The narrow volumes don’t have any writing on the spines, no titles and no authors. The books don’t matter, Jaehyun thinks to himself. If they did, he would at least be able to read them. 

Someone brushes by Jaehyun from behind, a hand ghosting the small of his back. The voice that accompanies it is deep, tinged with apology.

“Oh, excuse me.” 

The sharp tingle that runs up Jaehyun’s spine when the man talks is unsettling. He’s not used to being able to feel physical sensations in his dreams. He turns around to see a man standing there, half-leaning against the shelf, just looking evenly at Jaehyun with downturned brown eyes.

Jaehyun has never dreamt about a person before. 

There are people in his dreams, sure. The salesperson at Fendi is always a random face; he's read that any face you see can show up in your dreams, that your subconscious logs all kinds of details like that and can instant-recall at weird times. He's dreamt about his friends, about his mom. Even about his professor, once, when he bombed a checkpoint test and needed desperately to ask for an extra-credit assignment. 

But this is a specific stranger. He's not fuzzy or generic, he's got none of the weird NPC energy that a lot of the people in his dreams usually have. And where Jaehyun's attention is usually drawn to whatever thing he desires at the moment, the wallet or the expensive dinner or the B+ in political science, he's drawn...to this man. 

Which isn't necessarily bad, because this man is gorgeous. 

He's taller than Jaehyun (a feat, since Jaehyun's six-foot), with dark glossy hair and a small face with sculpted features; hooded eyes, flat nose, sharp chin. Thick arms peek out from under his t-shirt, and his waist is snatched in with a belt and a pair of tailored dark jeans. He's a runway model, for fuck's sake, he's perfect. 

But as Jaehyun openly ogles at him (why not? it's his dream!), the man turns and looks Jaehyun full in the eye. He looks...aware. And a little freaked out. 

So Jaehyun, master of first impressions, says, "Hey." 

"...Hi," the man says back, slowly. 

"Who are you?" Jaehyun asks. 

The man tilts his head, regarding Jaehyun carefully. "I was gonna ask you the same thing." 

"I'm Jaehyun." 

"Jaehyun..." the man says back, still looking distinctively unsettled. 

It's then that Jaehyun realizes they're speaking Korean. That in itself is normal-ish, since even though he lives and studies in the States he's completely fluent in his mother tongue, but it means he's being rude as hell, speaking banmal to a stranger and not even introducing himself right.

"Jung Jaehyun," he corrects. 

"I'm Youngho,” the man says, but he stumbles over the syllables of the name like he’s not used to saying it.

It's endearing, somehow, and Jaehyun can’t quite bring himself to care about the strangeness of what is happening here. He only dreams about his desires, and this man is…desirable. To say the least. 

“I don’t understand,” Youngho says, “I don’t – you see me, right?” 

“Of course,” Jaehyun answers. 

“And I see you. Wait, come here,” Youngho gestures him over. 

“Why?” 

Even so, Jaehyun gets closer, not wanting to waste an opportunity to see this tall, handsome stranger up close. This is still his dream, right? He can kind of do what he wants. 

Youngho reaches out and places both hands firmly on Jaehyun’s shoulders. It’s just like being awake, the firm pressure and warmth of his touch coming through Jaehyun’s hoodie as if this man is truly here with him. Jaehyun can’t ever remember something like this happening in his dreams, and he’s been having them as long as he can recall. Even childhood dreams about getting a hug from a family member or petting an animal at the zoo didn’t have this realistic warmth. 

“You can feel that, right?” Youngho asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“Me too.” 

“I’m still asleep, right?” Jaehyun says. 

Youngho shrugs, hands still on Jaehyun. “I think so. I am too, as far as I know.” 

“This is kind of a thing,” Jaehyun says tentatively. “Like, a thing that happens to me.” 

“Dreams?” 

“Lucid dreams. Really, really lucid dreams.” 

Youngho grins. “Does that mean I could fly if I wanted?” 

“I’ve never tried,” Jaehyun says. 

“Really? I would have tried, first thing!” Youngho says. “Are you boring, Jung Jaehyun?” 

He’s funny. Handsome and funny. Jaehyun ducks out of Youngho’s grip, grinning stupidly. 

“I don’t think I am,” Jaehyun says. 

“It’ll be up to me to decide,” Youngho replies. 

Youngho takes a long moment to scrutinize Jaehyun, from the top of his messy brown hair to the sneakers on his feet, with an expression of the utmost attention. Jaehyun feels a bit like a butterfly under glass. How has this guy shown up in Jaehyun’s dream and effortlessly taken control of the whole situation? 

“No,” Youngho decides, “Not boring. You’re too cute to be boring. That means there’s personality under there.” 

“There’s personality on the surface!” Jaehyun argues, feeling far too affronted at the idea of Youngho thinking he’s boring. 

“Nah, it’s under there a little bit,” Youngho counters. 

_“Hey-”_

“Don’t worry,” Youngho says, “If there’s cool stuff about you, I’ll find it.” 

He’s complimenting and poking fun and flirting all at the same time. What a hurricane of a person. Jaehyun wants so badly to get a handle on the situation, to figure out what’s going on inside that head, but the universe is not on his side. 

Jaehyun wakes up suddenly, staring at the dark ceiling of his room. 

Youngho. Huh. 

\---------------

It’s only just past 10PM on Friday night, nearly a week later, when Jaehyun excuses himself early from Joshua’s pseudo-required weekly family movie night. 

Usually, the three of them stay up as long as they can bear, watching bad movie after bad movie and eating and drinking whatever they can find in the house. Vernon is cuddled under his bright red Snuggie, and Joshua is making what looks like four boxes of mac and cheese dinner, and usually that would mean they were in for a good, long night of bullshit.

But Jaehyun is practically itching to go to bed tonight. 

“Where are you going?” Joshua calls, as Jaehyun folds up his throw blanket and bundles it into his arms. 

“I’m really tired. This paper is killing me,” he says, “I just want to turn in early, I think.” 

“Movies are communications, right? Maybe it’ll help you get going if you stay and watch,” Vernon goads. 

Joshua frowns. “With the garbage stuff you pick, it’ll probably do him more harm than good.” 

“Are you implying I have bad taste?” Vernon asks. 

“No, I’m saying flat-out that you have shit taste,” Joshua replies. 

Vernon squawks his offense in the background, as Joshua looks Jaehyun up and down carefully, as if assessing if he’s telling the truth. 

“If you’re having that much trouble, you should talk to someone, Jae,” Joshua says, much kinder. 

“I just need a good nights’ sleep,” Jaehyun says. 

“If you say so.” 

“You’re being a little bitch, but yeah, sleep good, dude,” Vernon agrees, turning his attention back to Netflix. 

That’s about as good of an out as Jaehyun’s gonna get, so he retreats to his bedroom without another word. As sad as it is, under any kind of actual consideration, Jaehyun has been looking forward to going to bed since he woke up.

He’s always had an easy time falling asleep, so dreams find Jaehyun nearly as soon as he’s changed clothes and climbed into bed. 

Jaehyun finds himself in a Korean noodle restaurant, the hole-in-the-wall kind with a half-dozen tables crammed into a warm, cozy shop space and color posters of all the menu items on the walls. It feels like a big middle finger from his subconscious, as he sits at his humble table, a steaming bowl of jjajangmyeon in front of him. He did ask for it, didn’t he? 

But it’s not the noodles that make Jaehyun nearly jump out of his skin, as he looks around at his crystal-clear dreamscape. 

It’s Youngho. That same man, sitting across from him at the table. 

The whole rest of the week, Youngho has been on the fringe of Jaehyun’s dreams, passing through like a visitor. He was in the Fendi store, talking to a different employee as Jaehyun hemmed and hawed over that same stupid black leather wallet. He was outside Jaehyun’s lecture hall as he dreamt about submitting the hard copy of his thesis to the department head. Youngho was always there, even if he wasn’t the focus of the dream. 

But tonight he’s in the spotlight, right here across the table, a heaping bowl of buckwheat noodles before him. 

Youngho points one long pretty finger at him. “Jaehyun.” 

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, very intelligently, “Yeah, you remembered.” 

“Any particular reason we’re out for noodles?” he asks. 

“I would explain, but I don’t think it would make sense.” 

“You think any of this makes sense?” Youngho grins, “No offense, but I don’t usually lucid dream, and I basically never dream about people I don’t know and then remember it after.” 

“Good point,” Jaehyun cedes. 

“Might as well enjoy it, huh?” 

Youngho’s already picked up his chopsticks and spoon, and he’s making quick work of a mouthful of buckwheat noodles. Jaehyun follows his lead, mixing the jjajang carefully and trying not to think too much about the sounds of Youngho slurping up the noodles and broth. It’s just on this side of suggestive, and Jaehyun doesn’t need to be a creep. 

“So, what’s new with you?” Youngho asks, after a moment. 

Jaehyun sighs. “Procrastinating.” 

“On what?” 

This guy is really unflappable, isn’t he? Jaehyun can’t understand why he’s just taking this dream thing in stride, but he certainly seems unbothered by it all, just feeding more noodles into his mouth. 

“My senior thesis,” Jaehyun says. 

Youngho whistles. “Undergrad?” 

“Yeah.” 

“What field?” 

“Communications,” Jaehyun tells him. 

“Hey, I have lots of good contacts in that field,” Youngho smiles, “Let me know if you need any help, you know, on the other side.” 

He wiggles his fingers dramatically, as if emphasizing the fact that they’re not meeting on the conscious plane, and Jaehyun can’t help how he laughs. 

“It’s not like we’re dead,” he says. 

Youngho regards him, amused. “Maybe we are. Who knows?” 

“I’ve never died before, so I guess, not me,” Jaehyun replies. 

“What are you studying?” Youngho asks. 

“Once you get me started, I won’t shut up about it,” Jaehyun warns him. 

“I wanna hear. C’mon.” 

Jaehyun’s not sure how much time passes in reality, but in the dream, it feels like hours that he sits at that table with Youngho, taking him through the finer points of his research, the things he’s uncovered and the hours he’s spent pouring himself into the work. He talks so much that he can feel his throat going dry, his voice becoming raspy. 

Youngho is a perfect listener, asking questions at all the right points and giving insight without overstepping. He makes eye contact, he nods and hums just right. It’s like he’s teaching a class on how to make someone feel heard and understood, and it makes Jaehyun feel strange and fuzzy right down to his toes. 

When he finishes, Youngho is just looking at him warmly. 

“What?” Jaehyun asks, self-conscious.

“I knew you weren’t boring, Jung Jaehyun.” 

Jaehyun can feel his cheeks heating up at the compliment, paired as it is with such a fond expression and gentle eyes. 

“You have a good brain in there,” Youngho teases. 

“If only I could use it effectively,” Jaehyun replies. 

“You love your topic a lot, and you know plenty, from what I just heard. If you can just hammer out a little bit every day, you’ll get there in no time,” Youngho says. 

Jaehyun legitimately cannot remember the last time someone gave him encouragement with this much gentle praise. His roommates are more of the tough-love type, and his parents have no idea how much trouble he’s having – as if he would actually tell them that he’s putting off his goddamn thesis paper. 

Even though the circumstances are more than a little sus, it’s touching to have someone’s unconditional support so easily. 

“It feels like too much,” Jaehyun admits. 

Youngho fixes him with a firm look. “Are you smart?” 

“I dunno, am I?” 

“Answer the question,” Youngho pushes. 

“I’m smart,” Jaehyun says. 

“Are you capable?” 

“I’m capable.” 

“Then can you get this done if you work on it?” 

Jaehyun smiles in spite of himself. “Yeah, I can get it done.” 

\---------------

Jaehyun cannot keep sleeping so much. 

His thesis is due in three days, and it’s not done. There’s no way around it. He has all the pieces, but none of them fit together. The bibliography is jumbled, his data is just in a big list, and his research points are written but unincorporated.

But even as the deadline looms, Jaehyun finds himself turning in early every single night, in hopes of seeing Youngho in his dreams. More often than not he does; they’ve gone to parks, to concerts, to dinner. They’ve talked about their childhoods, about Youngho’s DJing hobby and Jaehyun’s love of dance and everything from fears to favorite colors. 

There’s something inconsequential about it, how they’ve never met in person and have no real connection besides this dreamscape that they share. The undercurrent of Jaehyun’s odd gift is always there, that he dreams only about his desires, but there’s no hurry to it. He can desire Youngho’s company, too, his understanding and his comforting presence.

He does kind of desire him physically, too, but Jaehyun can’t get over how weird it would be to make a move on someone in a dream. 

As irrational as it is, sleep is trumping everything, and that’s how Jaehyun finds himself where he is now, in a cushy seat on the other side of his faculty advisor’s desk, trying not to cry out of frustration as he explains exactly how much more he has to finish. 

“Jaehyun, I can’t believe this,” Dr. Gomez is saying, “You really…why didn’t you ask for help sooner?” 

“I didn’t think it would get this bad,” Jaehyun says. 

“The conference is this weekend,” she sighs, “Jaehyun, I don’t know if I can make excuses for this.” 

The conference. The undergrad research conference in New York State (not too far from their college in Connecticut but not too close, either) that Dr. Gomez had pulled personal strings to get Jaehyun into, had asked in favors to get him a spot as a speaker in their lecture series. If there’s no project, Jaehyun will have to forfeit the spot, and that’ll come crashing down not only on him, but on his advisor. 

He hadn’t even considered this angle of it, and the negligence of it makes him almost sick.

“There are four days until the conference. What if I finish the project before I go on?” Jaehyun asks desperately. 

“That’s past the department deadline for senior theses,” Dr. Gomez chides. 

“Can you give me the extra day? Please?” Jaehyun begs. “I won’t eat, I won’t sleep-”

The professor holds up her hand. “I won’t have you killing yourself to get it done.” 

“I can do it,” Jaehyun insists. 

“I’m disappointed in you,” she says, “But only because I think you’re better than this.” 

“Does that mean you’ll help me?” 

“You can have until the presentation. If you walk onto that stage with a finished thesis, I won’t dock you,” Dr. Gomez decides. 

Until he walks onstage. That’s bringing it right down to the wire, but that’s kind of her style, Jaehyun knows far too well. High risk, high trust, high reward.

“You realize that you’re putting not only the conference, but potential grad school offers on the line?” she asks him. “There will be colleagues of mine at this meeting that would really give you a leg up if you do well.” 

“I know,” Jaehyun says. “I’ve just…I haven’t been sleeping well.” 

That’s the exact opposite of the truth, but there’s no other way to explain it. Dr. Gomez smiles at him, warm and parental but still with the steely glint in her eye that makes her both one of the hardest and best-loved professors on this campus.

“Then I suggest you get going, and make the best of these four days. Yes?” 

“Yes,” Jaehyun agrees, “Yes, thank you, thanks-”

He nearly trips out of his chair in his eagerness to leave the office and put his ass in gear to finish up this project. If he times his naps right, with alarms and sleep cycles, he can hopefully head off some of his dreams and maximize work time over the next few days. Dreaming about a man isn’t even on the same level as finishing his undergrad career and getting started on the rest of his life. 

Even if he’s gonna miss Youngho, a little. Or a lot. 

\---------------

Sheer willpower can only take you so far. Jaehyun know that. It’s a fact of life; no matter how hard you try there will always just be a limit to how hard you can push yourself before something breaks. 

Jaehyun goes on in two hours. The project isn’t done. 

The conference is taking a break for lunch, and Jaehyun has shut himself in a back room that looks something like a conference room, or maybe a lounge. He’s spread his reference material across the long desk, laptop open, and fingers flying over the keys. 

Maybe he’s having a bit of a breakdown. 

There are two more hours before Jaehyun either has to give his thesis presentation, or tell Dr. Gomez that he wasn’t able to do it. And only one of those options saves Jaehyun from complete and utter humiliation and allows him to graduate, so he knows what he’s trying for. 

He still has the whole conclusion to write, and a third of his slides to compile. There just isn’t enough time, or he just doesn’t have enough hands, or some combination of the two. There’s just no way…

A voice coming down the hall toward Jaehyun’s hidey-hole makes him groan to himself. He doesn’t have time to make conversation, or get a scolding, depending on who it is. The voice is almost familiar, kind of low and calm, accompanied by the rhythmic clicking of dress shoes on the tile floors. 

The door opens, and Jaehyun looks up, and suddenly wonders whether he’s awake or asleep. 

It’s Youngho. 

He doesn’t see Jaehyun at first, because he’s holding his phone up to his face, probably on a video call, laughing and saying something in perfect accent-free English. But then his eyes snap up, and he nearly drops the phone entirely. 

“Dude, what’s wrong?” comes a boy’s voice from the phone. 

“Mark, I gotta go, sorry,” Youngho says, eyes still on Jaehyun. 

“No worries, call me later.” 

And the call disconnects with a gentle beep. Youngho stows his phone in his pants pocket – God, he’s in a suit. So is Jaehyun, to be fair, but this is _Youngho_ looking formal and resplendent in a fitted navy suit. 

“You’re real,” Youngho says, looking like he’s seeing a ghost. 

Jaehyun doesn’t know how to respond to that, because his first thought is similar. He’s here. Why is he here? And – wait – he’s speaking – 

“You’re American?” Jaehyun exclaims, equally as floored. 

“You speak English?!” Youngho replies. 

“I live in Connecticut!” Jaehyun says. “I thought you were Korean!”

“I am Korean! But I’m from Chicago!”

“But you introduced yourself with your Korean name and I just assumed-”

“My name is Johnny,” Youngho – Johnny – says wildly, “I didn’t fucking know you spoke English, oh my God, I’ve made you sit through my rusty Korean with my stupid Korean name-”

Jaehyun really doesn’t have time for this crisis, that his dream man is not only real but is standing right here in a designer suit. He can’t think about how good he looks, or how the name Johnny really suits him, more than the Korean name. 

He now only has an hour and fifty minutes until he goes on, and he needs at least two extra pairs of hands to finish in time. 

“How fast can you type?” Jaehyun asks Johnny suddenly. 

“What?” 

“I need help. Bad. How fast can you type?” Jaehyun repeats. 

Johnny gets a look of parental disapproval that makes Jaehyun want to fall through the floor. “Did you seriously not finish your thesis?!” 

“Look, I tried, but-”

“After all that work I did to build you up?” Johnny chastises. 

“I was busy!” Jaehyun defends. 

“Doing what?” 

Jaehyun freezes. He can’t admit that he put his whole life on hold just to…

“Doing what?” Johnny repeats, more firmly. 

“Sleeping,” Jaehyun mutters. 

Johnny actually slaps one big palm to his own forehead. “You seriously risked fucking up your whole life just to dream about me?” 

“It sounds crazy when you say it that way…” 

“It sounds crazy no matter how you say it!” Johnny exclaims. 

But even as he scolds Jaehyun, he slings the brown leather satchel from over his shoulder and pulls out a slim laptop, plunking it down on the table across from Jaehyun’s. 

“Are you working on Docs?” he asks. 

Jaehyun nods. 

“Share the essay with me.” 

“Really?” Jaehyun asks, surprised. 

“I’m gonna finish the conclusion, you’re gonna write the slides. And we’re not gonna tell anyone that I helped you,” Johnny instructs. 

“God, you’re a lifesaver,” Jaehyun says, sending off the quick email to let Johnny into his working doc. 

Johnny grins at Jaehyun over their screens, his voice honey-sweet. “Maybe I’m just your dream man.” 

\---------------

For the twenty-two minutes and eleven seconds of Jaehyun’s thesis presentation, he might as well have not even been there. 

He doesn’t remember any of it. The spirit of his project possessed him, gave the talk, and then dropped him back into reality as the roomful of field professionals, academics, and other students applaud, as the final slide of his hastily-finished presentation sits on the screen behind him. 

Dr. Gomez had practically had to drag him onto the stage, and Johnny disappeared into the crowd before Jaehyun could even thank him. But it’s done, it’s finished, without a moment to spare. 

As Jaehyun climbs off the stage and winds his way around the outside of the room, scanning the room to find Dr. Gomez, he sees a different familiar face first. 

Johnny, looking bright-faced and proud, is staring right at him, smiling to beat the band. He’s weaving his own way through the seated crowd, making a beeline for Jaehyun. There’s another man in a suit following him, but Jaehyun doesn’t really have eyes for anyone else. 

They meet on the end of a row, and Jaehyun blames the sleep deprivation and the utter insanity of his last few weeks for the way he acts a fool. 

Before Johnny can even get a word out, Jaehyun throws himself into his arms, folding his own arms against Johnny’s pecs and standing as close as he can get. He’s warm and solid, just like in Jaehyun’s dreams. 

“What did I tell you?” Johnny quips, “Your dream man.” 

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything. He just kisses Johnny. 

Long, and hard. And dirty, slipping his tongue into Johnny’s mouth and getting a ridiculous gasp and a squeeze on the ass in return. 

“Jaehyun – _oh_.” 

Jaehyun jumps at the sound of Dr. Gomez’s voice, and pulls away from Johnny sheepishly. His faculty mentor is standing there, one hand on her hip, looking unimpressed. By her side is a tall man, greying at the temples, regarding the two of you with similar parental disdain. 

“Well, I was on my way to find you and introduce you to Dr. Huyen and his grad student researcher, but I guess you two have already met,” she says dryly. 

“Grad student?” Jaehyun repeats, looking up at Johnny. 

“Yeah, I told you I know a thing or two about communications,” Johnny replies cheekily. 

“Johnny is my right-hand man at NYU Steinhardt’s Media Studies department,” the man, the aforementioned Dr. Huyen, says. “And I see he’s already, ah, communicating with you quite well.” 

Jaehyun really wishes that he was dreaming right now, because at least then he could wake up and forget that this ever happened. It’s like being caught by his parents, only worse. Dr. Huyen, however, seems completely unbothered, and he continues walking toward the reception lobby with Dr. Gomez in tow. 

“We have a lot to talk about, Jaehyun,” he calls over his shoulder, “Come on, let’s go get a cup of coffee.” 

Johnny unwinds himself from Jaehyun and follows the professors away. Jaehyun lingers for a moment, just staring after him. 

That really just happened. 

They’re going to have to talk about it. About the dreams, about actually being so close to each other. But there’s business to discuss, first. They’ll get to it, later on, after the professors are busy again. 

And if they don’t, well. Jaehyun still thinks Johnny is pretty desirable. So there’s always tonight.


End file.
